Talk:Syrian civil war

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Rebel groups

Introduction section was edited to make article misleading. Introoduction part should describe the nature of the conflict and oposing forces. The information about opositioon was deleted on 1st November and introduction only describes Government forces. The follwing section should be reincluded into intrduction:

The armed opposition consists of various groups that were either formed during the course of the conflict or joined from abroad. In the north-west of the country, the main opposition faction is the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front allied with numerous other smaller Islamist groups, some of which operate under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The designation of the FSA by the West as a moderate opposition faction allows it, under the CIA-run programmes, to receive sophisticated weaponry and other military support from the U.S. and some Gulf countries that effectively increases the total fighting capacity of the Islamist rebels. In the east, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a jihadist militant group originating from Iraq, made rapid military gains in both Syria and Iraq. ISIL eventually came into conflict with other rebels, especially with Al-Nusra, leaders of which did not want to pledge allegiance to ISIL. By July 2014, ISIL controlled a third of Syria's territory and most of its oil and gas production, thus establishing itself as the principal anti-government force. As of 2015, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are openly backing the Army of Conquest, an umbrella rebel group that reportedly includes an al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and another Salafi coalition known as Ahrar ash-Sham, and Faylaq Al-Sham, a coalition of Muslim Brotherhood-linked rebel groups. Also, in the north-east, local Kurdish militias such as the YPG have taken up arms and have fought with both rebel Islamist factions and government loyalists.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.4.126 (talk) 21:04, 6 November 2015‎ (UTC)

References

Syrian Turkmen Brigades, Turkmen Mountain ,Syrian Turkmen Assembly and Bayırbucak ,

The Sultan Murat Brigades took control of the villages on Azaz-Jarablus front in northern Aleppo province alongside troops from the Damascus Front, a group fighting ISIL and regime forces. Turkmen seize Syrian villages controlled by ISIL

National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces Turkman Component of the Syrian National Coalition

Since Russia began air strikes on the Turkmen mountains in north-west Syria last month, nearly 5,000 people from the country's ethnic Turkmen minority have fled their homes. Many have crossed the border into Turkey's Hatay province, their plight overshadowed by a diplomatic row between Turkey and Russia.The Syrian Turkmen taking flight from Russian bombing

Provided evidence of the support of the Turkish military forces (for artillery fire large caliber) and the purchase oil off the terrorists.)

Provided evidence of the support of the Turkish military forces (for artillery fire large caliber) and the purchase oil off the terrorists.)

Jump up ^ https://russian.rt.com/article/145541 Jump up ^ http://lifenews.ru/news/182947 Jump up ^ http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/1579521/video/

Turkmens can be showed as an entity like YPG and YPJ on infobox

With the recent advancements on Turkish border (liberation of 20 Turkmen villages and Çobanbey town and border crossing) and in Aleppo (gaining of a vicinity from YPG) by Syrian Turkmen Brigades of the Syrian Turkmen Assembly (part of Syrian Opposition), I think Syrian Turkmen Brigades can be showed on the infobox. Sputnik, Anadolu Agency, Haber7, Al Jazeera

Turkmens, Syrian Turkmen Assembly and Syrian Turkmen Brigades "must" be mentioned in the Syrian Opposition part since they are currently the driving opposition force in North Aleppo and center of the Turkey's Syria policy. - Berkaysnklf (talk) 7 April 2016, 18:12 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.75.198.117 (talk)

Capitalization

Since when is the Syrian Civil War not a proper title and thus not deserving of capitalization? It should be reverted back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8001:28EB:AC92:773:D180:DBA2 (talk) 19:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Absolutely! We've already had this conversation! Charles Essie (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 24 May 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved for consistency with other "Civil War" articles. See Vivaporius's message. (non-admin closure) (closed by a page mover). Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:40, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

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Syrian civil war → Syrian Civil War – Per above. Charles Essie (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose – Not a proper name. Baking Soda (talk) 13:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Do you have anything to back that up? Charles Essie (talk) 14:38, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Don't need one. The default is lower case, per our own MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, and the advice of virtually every style guide in existence when it comes to capitalization. The burden of proof is on those who support the notion that this has somehow become a proper name.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:04, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Support. Wars are usually regarded as proper names and are therefore capitalised. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:44, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
• Per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. This is not a proper name unless the overwhelming majority of RS in English use this exact phrase, and capitalize it. What this actually is is a descriptive title, per WP:DESCRIPTDIS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:04, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
• Support Actually sources are using the caps; (CNN), (Aljazeera) (More to come...). Seeing this makes me lean towards support. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:17, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Sources given above use "Syrian civil war", with the exception of the title... Baking Soda (talk) 16:56, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• For the most part they were using "Syria's civil war" (a descriptive title, like how some would say "the civil war in Lebanon in '70s and '80s" in reference to the Lebanese Civil War) so it doesn't really count. Charles Essie (talk) 02:06, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Absent evidence to the contrary, this is a descriptive title and therefore not capitalized.  Sandstein  15:42, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
• Support – The topic was debated at length a just two and half years ago, and the evidence presented was that "Syrian Civil War" was a proper noun and that countless articles using "civil war" in the name were capitalized. Media sites use the capitalized version, and it is commonly understood that capitalization of the term helps to distinguish it from the more generic "civil war". Currently, there is no rhyme or reason to the logic behind using "Syrian civil war" rather than "Syrian Civil War". Unless this is just a common thing that happens, there is no convincing proof that using the non-capitalized version of the name makes any sense. The subject has been beaten to death, and there is simply no reason not to use the proper version of the name. You would be hard-pressed to explain why changing all civil wars throughout history to lower-case letters has any merit to it. Why this is even a discussion is beyond me. Vivaporius (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
• Support - per Vivaporius' reasoning. Applodion (talk) 10:46, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Oppose. @Anarchyte: - It is not a proper name, this is a descriptive title. @Baking Soda:'s evidence above, that the sources don't generally capitalise it except in the title is telling. The fact that other articles are incorrectly titled doesn't mean this one should be too.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
• Comment – Agree with Amakuru's comment above. Anarchyte, will you consider relisting discussion? No evidence presented that "Syrian Civil War" is a proper name, most sources, scholarly ones included, use lower caps. Baking Soda (talk) 21:08, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - Most people refer to WWII as simply The War, that doesn't mean we rename that article too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8001:28EB:9DD0:ED66:F9B6:4A91 (talk) 05:18, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - @Amakuru, Baking Soda, and 2601:CB:8001:28EB:9DD0:ED66:F9B6:4A91: I see no reason to reopen this. It's written as Civil War everywhere else; Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War, Timeline of the Syrian Civil War (including all the sub pages of the timeline), Syrian reactions to the Syrian Civil War, List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War, etc (more are linked in the article if you wish to do some parusing around). I'd like to see some uninvolved opinions on this one, so if you wish to take this close to Move Reviews and it gets overturned due to consensus, I'm more than happy to agree with the new consensus and move it back/get someone to move it back. Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:28, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

  @Anarchyte: the benchmark to compare against is not other articles on Wikipedia, which most likely are similarly mistitled to the original one, but to sources out there on the interweb. The burden of proof necessary for making an article a proper name rather than a descriptive name is actually quite high: MOS:CAPS says words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia, a condition that is clearly not met here. The sources are anything but consistent on how they capitalise and name this thing, therefore we should default to our preferred sentence case, as we do now for Rwandan genocide, Montgomery bus boycott etc. which were all downcased in recent RMs. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:01, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

  The problem with this is whose point of view are we going on here when it comes to "consistently"? What threshold was reached with lets say American Civil War? Do you have numbers or statistics to back up your claim? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

  @Knowledgekid87: American Civil War is much easier, because we have an ngram available for us: [1] showing that there is an overwhelming majority of sources capitalising it. For Syrian Civil War though, the terms aren't even recognised by ngram [2] which in itself adds a lot of evidence that this is *not* the commonly used proper name for this war, but is instead a minority or Wikipedia made up title, which is fine, as long as you write it in sentence case to show that it's a descriptive title not a proper name. This is a civil war that is taking place in Syria, it is not the Syrian Civil War.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

  Take a look at Google books searches for "syrian civil war is" - which eliminates title matches, showing those occurring in a sentence, but in any case: [3]. You'll see that most of the books have "civil war" in lower case. Now do the same thing for "american civil war is": [4], and you'll see that all capitalise it. That's what's meant by consistently.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:12, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• I moved the page back to Syrian Civil War and I endorse the close. The page was moved out of process to "Syrian civil war" as a "technical move" on 14 May, when it was not uncontroversial. The nominator had a restriction from moving pages without discussion, which they breached. The move above restored the status quo and it is a move to "Syrian civil war" that would need to establish grounds and consensus, with reference to the 2013 RM that established "Syrian Civil War" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Syrian_Civil_War/Archive_31#Requested_move_.28again.29. Fences&Windows 12:39, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Move review

The above RM discussion and move is under review at Wikipedia:Move_review#Syrian_Civil_War. Dicklyon (talk) 03:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

@Anarchyte, Baking Soda, Fences and windows, SmokeyJoe, Jenks24, and Amakuru: I closed the MRV here. Thanks. If there's anything problematic about the closure, I'll learn from any feedback. Thanks — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 09:48, 22 June 2016 (UTC) 09:52, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Really good closure I thought. The only thing I would have done slightly differently is start the new RM as a procedural step (I've now done this below) because it's a bit unfair to effectively close as relist without giving those who want to express further opinion a clear avenue to do so. Jenks24 (talk) 10:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

That was a very good closure, thanks Andy M. Wang for cutting through what had become a bit of a mess with this common sense approach. It's barely even IAR in my opinion, as the relist called for will take place. The article is now at its longish term title, and we have an opportunity to try to move it the right way. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:27, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Inaccuracies in the map

The map is very innacurate. For example, in the map the Syrian Army is quite far from Tabqa however they are much closer than depicted on the map. Here's a reference to the area under their control which is consistent with their progress: http://en.abna24.com/cache/image/2016/06/08/6c43c4ff674d95f76d45b93781a89489.jpg

Additionally another error is that the SDF is shown controlling large areas east of Manbij though it has taken very little area around of Manbij dince it encircled the town. You can see the article of Manbij offensive (2016) for area under their control.

Therefore please make corrections to the map to make it accurate. Thank you. 117.214.243.12 (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 22 June 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move to the lowercase variant. Before closing this particular request, I took into accounts arguments expressed in the many move debates since 2012 and in the recent move review. Note that I have never been involved in any of those discussions and I pledge a fully neutral stance about "the way it should be". Reliable sources quoted by editors have been demonstrated to be mixed between lowercase and uppercase (when excluding title capitalization). In the absence of an overwhelming majority spelling in RS, we should follow Wikipedia's house style per MOS:TITLE, MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, viz. in a nutshell Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization, hence lowercase. Many editors compared this title to other civil wars, either pledging to enforce caps everywhere for consistency or arguing that we should defer to the most frequent spelling in reliable sources. Some also complained that switching to lowercase here would impact several other articles. Such considerations are outside the scope of this move closure, although I would encourage editors to review the capitalization of other civil wars based on general policy and current sourcing. Finally, arguments about preserving the long-term title were discarded because the title has been switched several times over four years, with or without appropriate debates, so there is no longstanding stable version. — JFG ^talk 14:26, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

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Syrian Civil War → Syrian civil war – Procedural nomination following on from Talk:Syrian Civil War#Requested move 24 May 2016 and Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2016 June#Syrian Civil War (closed). Note that the long-term consensus title for this page has been the captialised version, "Syrian Civil War". Note also that this is a solely procedural nomination and I am neutral. Jenks24 (talk) 10:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• @Charles Essie, Baking Soda, SMcCandlish, Necrothesp, Knowledgekid87, Anarchyte, Sandstein, Vivaporius, Applodion, Amakuru, Fences and windows, Andy M. Wang, SmokeyJoe, Insertcleverphrasehere, Dicklyon, and Tony1: pinging all potentially interested parties, even if they've only been involved in procedural/administrative capacities thus far. Jenks24 (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Neutral, but I'd like to apologise for the mess that closure made. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:09, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• Anarchyte, you don't need to apologize; it was the prior "uncontroversial" move that caused the mess and I would not have completed the move back if I felt the close was wrong. The move review close took the context into account, which the move review discussion failed to, and this relist has no real reflection on your close. Fences&Windows 11:28, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

  Very true, I second this. I actually did ask you to reopen the move, but given that the original move was "the wrong way round", because it called for a bold undiscussed title to be moved to the long term title, this eventual outcome is better than it would have been if you'd reopened it. Now we have a clean slate, and the proposal is to move away from the long term title.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:35, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, and the fact that properly constructed news searches shows that reliable sources rarely capitalize this phrase except in title case headlines [5], and do not even use this construction consistently, with various alternatives [6], case questions aside. We default to lower case when source usage is inconsistent. And it is, so it clearly does not have linguistic proper noun or philosophical proper name status; it is simply a descriptive term. It may become a proper noun some day like the English Civil War (among a markably large number of English civil wars) and the American Civil War, but this has not happened yet, and may never (for all we know, it will end up being called the Syrian Revolution, Syrian Revolt, or whatever). Previous attempts to source capitalization of this are riddled with false positives that are article, chapter and section headings written in title case, where even "A Recipe for Chicken with Polenta" would come out capitalized. The claim that this specific phrase, for a new and still-ongoing series of events, has globally hardened into a consistent proper name is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary sourcing, of that actual alleged fact, not just someone's style-activism general impression derived from original research in manipulating cherry-picked search results. Good luck finding such overwhelming evidence, since I've already disproven the case in about 30 seconds on Google News.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:29, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, there is evidence (see other move requests) that Syrian Civil War is a proper noun, used as such by quite a lot of sources, although not all. DO a google books search for "syrian Civil War, and scroll through a few pages and you will find that about a third of sources use it as a proper noun. Oppose per WP:CONSISTENCY as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Insertcleverphrasehere (talk • contribs)

  A third is nowhere near enough for us to treat it as a proper name. Per MOS:CAPS: words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia. Something that is capitalized a third of the time is hardly "consistently" capitalized. :)  — Amakuru (talk) 12:24, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• Support per Amakuru. Noting apology for weird closure by Anarchytel. Tony (talk) 12:28, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support per the MOS:CAPS text I've quoted above, and the fact that all presented evidence suggests that sources do not capitalize this consistently, and usage varies between "Syria's civil war", "Syrian civil war", "civil war in Syria" etc. This is still a descriptive title, it hasn't taken hold as a proper name yet, unlike American Civil War. I understand the consistency argument, but actually I think a lot of the other articles of this type are incorrectly named too. Rwandan Civil War, an article I largely wrote, is another example that should probably be downcased. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:32, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Applodion (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Essentially neutral. I'm willing to go with consensus on this one. If lowercasing is consensus, I suggest that a number of other "Civil War" pages be moved. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 17:15, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CONSISTENCY. I see the title being used in both upper, and lower case when it come to sources we should move on and focus on article content. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per my previous assessment on the issue. Vivaporius (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support – This conflict is called many things, and when it is referred as the Syrian civil war, it is frequently lowercase. WP is not in the business of defining proper names for things; rather, we take our cue from sources on what things are called, and interpret as proper names those things that are consistently capitalized in sources. This is not one of those, and "consistency" is not an argument that's relevant here, since other such wars appear both ways (see disambig pages Afghan civil war and Iraqi civil war for some examples). Dicklyon (talk) 00:23, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose – Every "civil war" article in those disambiguation pages is capitalized. If you ask me, that validates the "consistency" arguement instead of discrediting it. Charles Essie (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

• Technical note. If this page is moved, please move Template:Editnotices/Page/Syrian Civil War as well. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 01:54, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - Using google searches to determine consistant capitalization when the majority of anything on the net is not properly capitalized is a bad measure to use. I oppose the practice in general on this site and I oppose its use here. The article has been perfectly fine for years as the capitalized Syrian Civil War. The only reason we're even having this discussion again is because someone went too bold and changed it without discussion, kicking the proverbial hornets nest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8001:28EB:E5FD:FC8:E274:5446 (talk) 04:49, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

China

Why is China listed under "Belligerents"? According to this, the story about sending ships was false. If it is true, there should be reports of the Liaoning reaching Syria.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:21, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Nuke it. And North Korea. Seems to be BS propaganda. FunkMonk (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I've removed the China section as it is obviously out of date. There probably needs to be more discussion about North Korea. It's been discussed twice before, so there seems to be some support for mentioning it.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:50, 28 June 2016 (UTC)